Last week, Ukraine's European allies—Denmark, Poland, the UK, Norway, and Germany—continued to provide financial and defense support to sustain Ukraine's war effort. Trump’s new presidency might take an interesting turn, as, according to reports, he intends to demand NATO member states increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. Meanwhile, increased militarization and insecurity have motivated Finnish citizens to advocate for withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty, undermining the global arms control efforts.
Military transfers to Ukraine:
Germany sent the sixth IRIS-T air defense system to Ukraine.
On December 19, the United Kingdom announced a new £225m ($286M) military aid package for Ukraine. The new package includes: £92M to support the navy; £68M for air defense equipment; £26M for spare parts and maintenance of previously delivered systems; £39M for the supply of more than 1,000 electronic warfare systems for use against drones, along with other means of protection.
Denmark allocated 2.1 billion Danish kroner (over $292 million) to bolster Ukraine's air defense. The package includes financial support for the operation of Ukraine’s F-16 fighter jets used to counter Russian air targets.
On December 18, the summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force agreed to provide Ukraine with military assistance worth more than €12 billion in 2025. The summit was attended by representatives of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
On December 17, Poland announced a new military aid package for Ukraine, the 46th of its kind, valued at €100 million, which will be delivered in January.
On December 16, Norway announced that it would provide NOK 2.7 billion (~$241.5 million) support to strengthen the Ukrainian Navy. The funding will, among other things, be used to protect people in Ukraine from attacks as well as for mine clearance operations and training of Ukrainian soldiers.
The German government has doubled its arms exports to Ukraine this year and halved them to Israel compared to 2023
Countries in the Maritime and Drone Capability Coalitions are set to begin supplying Ukraine with tens of thousands of drones of various types starting in January under the Ramstein format.
NATO has taken over the coordination of Western military assistance to Ukraine from the United States after a several-month delay, as planned - Reuters. This refers to the launch of the new NATO Security Assistance and Training Centre for Ukraine (NSATU), which was agreed upon by the Allied leaders at the summit in Washington in July 2024. The centre, located at a US military base in the German city of Wiesbaden, is "fully operational".
EU will train 75,000 Ukrainian soldiers by early 2025.
Military cooperation projects with partners:
Rheinmetall has been contracted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence to supply 155mm artillery propellant charge modules.
The Ukrainian government seeks to secure licenses from the United States to manufacture Patriot air defense systems domestically.
Military production and internal affairs of Ukraine:
Ukraine collects a vast war data trove to train AI models. Ukraine has collected more than 2 million hours (228 years) of footage from the front. "Ochi" platform aggregates streams from more than 15,000 drone crews operating on the front lines. Some of Ukraine's foreign allies had expressed interest in the OCHI system.
Ukraine delivered 200,000 domestically-produced drones to front-line units so far in December.
Ukraine’s laser system, called Tryzub, can down aircraft at altitudes exceeding 2 kilometers.
Vyriy Drone has assembled the first sample of an FPV copter using components made exclusively in Ukraine.
Ukraine has demonstrated the integration of a fiber-optic communication system into a ground-based unmanned platform.
Russia and its allies:
North Korea is producing missiles for Russia's use in Ukraine within months - faster than initially thought - Conflict Armament Research.
North Korea (DPRK) has likely transferred KN-15 (Pukguksong-2) missile systems to Russia.
Russian general charged with chemical weapons crimes reported dead in Moscow explosion. The previous day, Ukraine's SBU sentenced Kirillov in absentia for the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said that the Russian military should be ready for a war with NATO in the next decade.
Russia to mass-produce Oreshnik ballistic missiles, Putin claims.
Russia is disrupting mobile communications and ship tracking in the Baltic Sea, which could pose a threat to vessels and energy supplies.
Major developments:
On Dec. 20, Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted their first attack solely using unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and first-person view (FPV) drones, highlighting Ukraine's ongoing efforts to leverage technological innovation into ground operations.
Ukraine launched ATACMS, Storm Shadow against Russian chemical plant on Dec. 18, Moscow claims.
Russia conducted a cyberattack on Ukraine's government services on Dec. 19.
Other news:
The South Korean military is set to hold a joint air defense exercise focused on countering North Korean drone threats.
A citizens' initiative calling for Finland's withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty banning the use of anti-personnel mines has been handed over to Parliament for consideration. The initiative, which was launched on Independence Day, 6 December, collected the required 50,000 signatures within four days.
Estonia urges NATO allies to boost defense spending to counter Russian threats. Currently, only 23 of NATO's 32 members are on track to meet the alliance's target of spending at least 2% of GDP on defense.
Trump’s team has told European officials that the incoming US president will demand NATO member states increase defence spending to 5% of GDP, but plans to continue supplying military aid to Ukraine.
Several countries are interested in deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine. This idea was initially proposed by French President Macron.
Sweden does not exclude the possibility of expanding its physical presence in Ukraine to strengthen the country's defenses.
Norway has deployed the NASAMS air defense system in Poland to protect the logistics center of international military assistance to Ukraine.
Peace talks with Russia are only possible when Moscow runs out of resources, Ukraine says.
Opinion and analysis:
Balancing Control and Awareness: Firearms and Safety in Ukraine (Gergely Hideg for Small Arms Survey). The Ukrainian population’s perception towards firearms is evolving. As of July 2024, 5% of surveyed households report possessing firearms—down from pre-invasion levels and the lowest since monitoring began. Of these firearm-owning households, 63% reported having (some of) their weapons recorded in the Unified Register of Weapons (URW), up from 46% in December 2023. Meanwhile, about one-third of interviewed Ukrainians reported receiving training on firearm safety, with 24% having undergone formal training from armed services or other sources.
Ukraine is droning on. A review of Ukraine's new missile projects (Fabian Hoffman). In recent weeks, Ukraine has announced several previously undisclosed missile projects. Combined with the missile systems already known to be in Ukraine's arsenal and the projects previously known to be under development, this provides decent insights into the missile arsenal Ukraine is planning to deploy in the future. This analysis is based entirely on publicly available information, meaning classified capability profiles may differ.
Attack of the Drones: Lessons from Ukraine (Illya Sekirin for The British Army Review. Page 20-23). At the national-strategic level, in a confrontation with an authoritarian adversary like Russia or China (capable of manning large conventional armies with a high tolerance of personnel losses), a well-functioning UAS and electromagnetic warfare force would provide the advantage of being able to inflict substantial casualties on the enemy while exposing friendly forces to minimal risk.
Russia’s war machine is running on fumes as industry warns of bankruptcies and the Kremlin gets old tanks from movie studio (Jason Ma for Fortune). The Russian military is losing about 320 tanks and artillery cannon barrels a month, while Russian factories can produce only 20 each month, forcing the Kremlin to dig into aging Soviet stockpiles. But that’s not enough, and Russia will run out of barrels sometime in 2025.
Ukraine’s defense procurement problems risk sabotaging war front (Politico). Ukraine has made an enormous effort to revamp and clean up its procurement process. But still, Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov is facing questions over procurement problems. The Ukrainian parliament wants him to respond to reports that thousands of malfunctioning mortar shells were produced by a local company and sent to the front, and also to answer why a €553 million order for shells was taken away from the main defense procurement agency and will instead by carried out by a Polish intermediary for the State Border Guard Service.